The Austrian pavilion at the Expo 2015 in Milan:
Breathe.austria set out explorative issues in dealing with the globally vital nourishment of air and climate. It has been uniting architecture and the environment to create an integral contribution at the Expo in Milan under the overall topic „Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life“.
Planting a grove of trees to create 560 m2 of forest, breathe.austria took an exemplary approach – multifaceted and sensory in equal measure – to focusing on our relationship with the environment and climate.
Breathe.austria’s entire floor area was densely planted with 12 forest ecotypes, ranging from mosses and shrubs to towering 12-metre trees. It featured an overall leaf surface area or evaporation surface of ca. 43,200 m2 and thus generating enough fresh air each hour for meeting the needs of 1,800 visitors – essentially making it a photosynthesis collector that contributes to global oxygen production.
In the pavilion the natural effect of cooling was accelerated by the implementation of technical additions, like fog nossels or mist nossel equiped ventilators. The spray- and fog systems were subdivided in different zones, which allowed the operation of very specific choreographies and reduce the perceived temperature by 5-8°C. The architecture, a wooden framework that surrounded the landscape, created the built boundaries for the unique microclimate to unfold.
All five members of Breathe Earth Collective have been part of team.breathe.austria, who was in charge for the design and construction of breathe.austria.
Location: Milan, Italy
Year: 2013 – 2015
Size: 2.000m2
Principal: Austrian Federal Chamber of Commerce, Expo Austria office
Design by: team.breathe.austria
idea & concept team:
Agency in Biosphere – Markus Jeschaunig
Hohensinn Architektur – Karlheinz Boiger
LANDLAB, i_a&l, TU-Graz – Andreas Goritschnig and Bernhard König
Lendlabor Graz – Anna Resch and Lisa Maria Enzenhofer
terrain: architekten und landschaftsarchitekten BDA – Klaus K. Loenhart
and
Maren Richter
Engelmann Peters Ingenieure – Stefan Peters
transsolar – Wolfgang Kessling
BOKU Wien IBLB – Bernhard Scharf
photo credits:
Simon Oberhofer (main image)
Daniele Madia (interior close up photographs)
Marc Lins (aerial view night)
team.breathe.austria (illustrations and breathing photograph)